Happy birthday Mike, I wish you another year of good fortune as the Chinese people would say.. I think that a stereotype but anyways, about this flu shot yeah you missed one other explanation as to why not: “needles hurt like a bitch!” I don’t like getting needles though I would love to protect myself from the flu and those around me, I just can’t build up the courage do go to that doctors office and ask them to stick a long sharp pin-like object into my arm, just like I can’t build up the courage to ask that cute girl at my work out. So what kind of words of encouragement can you give a poor wimpy soul like myself?

I’m with lazy. Not only do needles turn one’s arm into a dead piece of meat for several days, they’re frickin’ scary. I turn into a blubbering mess, and shake like a washing machine with an unbalanced load, which of course makes it worse.
My goal is to give blood someday, so I guess if they offer the shot on campus I should take it, but not today… Today is /my/ birthday. ^_^

Just worth mentioning something that very few people remember these days: over the course of 4-6 months in 1918-9, Influenza killed more people worldwide than died in decades of wars. Estimates range from 50-100 million people dead in under a year from the Spanish Flu compared to “only” 20 million dead in all of WW I (including civilians). In some parts Alaska and other remote areas entire villages were wiped out. It was so virulent that people could die within one day of displaying symptoms, formerly healthy men coughed so hard they broke their own ribs. Ships carrying soldiers to Britain would leave healthy and arrive as a graveyard.

Perhaps because of the horror of this event it was virtually wiped from public consciousness and except for passing mentions around avian flu, few people know what happened.

The flu which goes around today is much milder but it isn’t just a cold and some people still get very sick. It seems a common and bitter irony that the people who have so many reasons to avoid vaccinations are the people who seem to know virtually nothing about what these infections can actually do.

“needles hurt like a bitch!” Just be grateful you’re never going to have a baby. Now roll your sleeve up.

“I don’t think many people apart from the old and infirm get flu shots in England.” – Some pharmacies offer them at a price (Tescos: £10) but the local Boots sold out quickly. They’re free on the NHS for people “at risk”; generally the old and infirm or people with diseases such as asthma. My Dad was a GP in the days when GPs did their own night visits and he gave the flu shot to anyone he saw in surgery and who he could persuade to roll up their sleeves. He said that if they didn’t have it they were “at risk” – of calling him out at 3.30 on a cold morning.

SkepticalSally – ““needles hurt like a bitch!” Just be grateful you’re never going to have a baby. Now roll your sleeve up.” you are right about the baby thing haha I wouldn’t want more of me on this earth anyways, that would just be torcher for everyone including the kid especially, but I ain’t rolling up my sleeve! HCN has it right, inhalers are the way to go, much much less painful.

Awww..I’m like everyone else here, apparently. I have this needle phobia, you see. Whenever someone comes at me with a needle, well, I panic. Hehe. Full on hysterics. I can’t control it, it’s completely irrational. I know needles don’t hurt that badly.

Nevertheless, I just don’t want to put up with all that stress and panic unless I really, really have to. I even got the flu last year (first time), and it was really terrible, but still…the shot is somehow worse. Hehe. If only all the lazy people would get their flu shots and protect me from harm!

Like everyone else, I hate needles, but I also have asthma, so I make sure I get mine every year. I’ll take every once of (evidence supported) prevention I can get, considering that if I do happen to get the flu, I’m almost guaranteed to end up in hospital. And my asthma isn’t even that bad day-to-day.

Anyway, when I get blood draws and vaccines I put on my mp3 player and look away. I do not look at the needle and the nurse at the doctor’s office knows this, and he is actually quite good at both drawing blood and giving vaccines with minimal pain. It is often over before I realize it has happened.

Happy Birthday, Mike! Good for you for getting your flu shot…I haven’t gotten mine yet. I need to go. And good for you for spreading scientific facts about the flu shot to your colleagues. I would do the same…except I’m self-employed.

Well I never get the shot and I never get the flu, I reckon thats a good reason actually. I think your argument that this increases the risk to others to be weak. I’m fully in favour of childhood immunizations but you can’t seriously expect that everybody should get the flu shot every year. As you have pointed out, it doesn’t protect against all strains anyway.

“Well I never get the shot and I never get the flu, I reckon that’s a good reason actually”

This is backwards logic. This is like a soldier saying “I’ve never been shot in battle, so I don’t need to duck when there is gunfire”. Do you wear seat belts? You get the analogy.

“it doesn’t protect against all strains anyway.”

The flu shot is designed to cover the strains that are likely to kill us for that particular season. Last year, there were three strains and the designers of the flu shot planned on there being 2. This is a 66% match. Refusing to get the flu shot is a 0% match.

Flu related deaths reach up to 30,000 in the U.S. each year. Get the shot (preferably in early October).

My understanding was the shot is recommended for the more at-risk sections of the community, it certainly used to be. I’m 40 years old and have never had flu so I suspect i’m more resistant than the average person to the flu virus, so the risk is extremely low. I don’t intend to get a Gardasil vaccination for cervical cancer either.
I do wear a seatbelt though.